Football

Bowdoin Travels to Hamilton This Weekend In Search of Second Straight Win

Oct 11, 2012

BRUNSWICK, Maine - The Bowdoin College football team will take its longest road trip of the 2012 campaign this weekend as they travel to play at Hamilton College on Saturday afternoon. Kickoff is scheduled for noon. It will be the 29th meeting between the squads.

The Polar Bears garnered their first win of the year last week against Tufts and stand at 1-2 this fall. The Continentals are still in search of their first victory of the campaign, having lost their first three games by an average margin of 27.6 points.

LIVE COVERAGE
Hamilton will provide live stats and video webcast coverage of Saturday's game. Click the links above to follow the action live.

POLAR BEAR PREVIEW
Bowdoin broke into the victory column last week thanks to a lethal ground attack that featured 215 rushing yards, including 137 and two touchdowns from Zach Donnarumma. After missing the first two games of the season, Donnarumma was a
workhorse, carrying the ball 32 times and averaging 4.3 yards per carry. Greg Pierce also added 73 yards as the Polar Bears vaulted to fifth in the NESCAC in rushing (156.0 yards/game). They will look to exploit that against Hamilton, who presently stands last in the league, permitting 341.7 yards per game on the ground.

Defensively, the Polar Bears rank in the middle of the conference by allowing 331.7 yards of offense per contest (sixth) and 24.7 points per game (seventh). Griffin Cardew currently leads the NESCAC in tackles at 12.0/game.

SCOUTING THE CONTINENTALS
The Continentals enter Saturday's game having lost eight of their last nine contests dating back to last October. Hamilton is under the direction of first-year head coach Andrew Cohen, who served as Bowdoin's defensive coordinator for the 2011 campaign.

Hamilton has opened the season with three of the league's most high-powered teams and remained close with Amherst (down 21-14 at halftime) and Wesleyan (up 7-6 at halftime) before falling off in the second half of both games. Last weekend, Trinity jumped out to a 41-0 lead at halftime and never looked back en route to a 53-14 victory.

Junior running back James Stanell rushed 31 times for a career-high 159 yards in the loss. It was the most rushing yards by a Continental since 2004. Stanell recorded a three-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter. He also added 115 yards on kickoff returns and two more on a reception for a total of 276 all-purpose yards and currently leads the league at 211.0 all-purpose yards/game.

Hamilton is tenth in the league in total offense (211.7 yards/game) and total defense (481.7 yards/game). Mike MacDonald is third in the conference at 10.3 tackles/game.

LAST MEETING
Last year in Brunswick, Bowdoin sacked Hamilton six times and set a new program record by holding the Continentals to negative yards rushing in a 20-7 Homecoming victory. Peter Troubh '12 led a tenacious Bowdoin defense that sacked Hamilton quarterback Jordan Eck six times and permitted -34 yards on the ground, breaking the former school mark of -17 set in 1975 against W.P.I. Troubh had three of Bowdoin's six sacks while running back Zach Donnarumma had 79 yards to lead a Polar Bear rushing attack that finished with 146 on the ground.

Bowdoin's Mac Caputi delivered the knockout blow with an 18-yard pass to Michael English in the third quarter that gave the Polar Bears a 17-7 advantage. Click the video on the right to view.

BOWDOIN vs. HAMILTON
The Polar Bear-Continental series history is Bowdoin's shortest against any of its NESCAC foes. The teams have played 28 times with Hamilton holding a 16-12 advantage all-time. Bowdoin has won two of the last three meetings, but the Polar Bears have gone winless in their last four trips to Clinton, having not won in Upstate New York since 2002.